Jim Rogers is sounding the alarm -- buy agricultural commodities ahead of the riots. The financial crisis has cut off investment in agriculture, with many farmers unable to get loans for fertilizer according to Mr. Rogers. Of course, this means agricultural commodities will make a killing:

CNBC: "Sometimes in the next few years we're going to have very serious shortages of food everywhere in the world and prices are going to go through the roof."

Cotton and coffee are good buys because they are very distressed, while sugar, despite the fact that it has gone up a lot, is still down 70 percent from its all-time high, according to Rogers.

"I don't think that the problems of the world are behind us yet," he said.

I can attest that this is true. Hubby does marketing for Monsanto — the farmers can’t buy if there are no loans. We don’t eat, if they can’t buy and plant. Even if they plant and can’t buy fertilizer and pest control (which is an astronomical cost), the yields will be far less and there will be less to go around.

Also the government no longer has stores of surplus grains. All such were emptied a couple years ago and are not being built back up. Though you will find a good number of Freepers that agree with that decision I for one say that it was a bad one. Just like the Strategic Reserves that the government keeps for a number of (in case of war commodities such as the Strategic Petroleum Reserve)food is just as important if not more so.

I am the last guy you would think would have his own garden and would can food. I live in Joisey for God's sake. However, I am very fortunate to live in a rural part of the state and have over an acre of very fertile land on a ridgeline that gets a ton of precipitation and slow snow melt.

I will plant my first garden next year to start to learn how to do it-figure there is a learning curve. I guess I will need to stock up on fertilizer and some sort of chemicals to preserve the crop. It would be the ultimate in irony for me to plant a garden, have a crisis happen, and then have the harvest wiped out by a disease or insects.

13
posted on 01/15/2010 9:39:25 AM PST
by MattinNJ
(O is going to get his candy ass kicked by a girl. Go Sarah.)

All of that is true, but its not the banks. The banks know they will be punished further if they don’t cought it up and buy more bonds. They know this government will do what it can to put them “fat cat bankers” out of business, they minimize risk, in their view, by buying government debt.

The government knows that they need to sell more bonds in order to spend more debt. The fed loans it to the banks at .25% and they buy bonds at 3%, giving the government mo’ money. Government is wasting it and stealing it.

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